


The Cost of Rebellion

by colorofmercury



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, M/M, Unhappy Ending, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorofmercury/pseuds/colorofmercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders did what he thought was necessary. Hawke was not sure he could ever forgive him, and Anders would never have blamed him for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cost of Rebellion

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, two years since my last upload. It's been a while. It feels great to finally be writing again! I have a really hard time with sad endings so it was good to push myself to write this. Big thanks to the team squad for encouraging me, and to Rae and Perdue for betaing! This wouldn't have been published without your help <3 
> 
> The last Anders choice boils down to "kill him/release him/forgive him", none of which really seemed right. I wanted to find an option that made more sense to me and see where it might have ended. (Badly, as it turns out.)

Anders could not ever, he thought, forgive himself for what he had done. He knew just as surely that he would not have forgiven himself for doing nothing.

It was the only way. He spent years thinking, desperately trying to think of anything else that might save those mages, but any plan he thought up wasn't enough. No conversation or petition would do anything. Any escape attempts would be met with tranquility or death. With the right of annulment hanging over their heads, anyone alive now was as good as dead the second they stepped out of line.

He was so _angry_. He could not ignore this anymore.

This was all there was left to do.

He felt dread and regret and horror but he shoved it down, forced it down past his anger until he couldn't feel it, and all there was left was _vengeance_.

\--

Some selfish part of Anders wanted Hawke to forgive him. He knew he didn't deserve it; he deserved, in all honesty, to die. He didn't want to die, not really, but he had taken so many lives... it was not his place to decide their fate. It was not his right to sacrifice them for a greater cause.

He was not sorry for it. He could not be sorry for it. But he had a price to pay, and his own life was the only thing he had left to give. And so he offered it, willingly, because he knew he could not ask Hawke to forgive him.

"Help me defend the mages," he'd said instead.

A moment later, the party began to move out. "Thank you," Anders said.

Hawke looked... betrayed. That was to be expected, Anders told himself. This was the price to pay.

"I don't think I can forgive you," he said. "But I can't let you just... let these people die."

He deserved this. He deserved no kinder. "I'll cut down every templar in my path," he swore, and Hawke took a shaky breath and turned away.

Anders felt his heart shatter, and he felt hot, pale blue between the cracks, welding it back together. This was a sacrifice he had every right to make: his own feelings were of no consequence with _freedom_ at stake.

He was hot and pale blue as he killed every templar that lent themselves to this injustice. It was a far cry from redemption, he thought, but he could save just a few more lives.

\--

The night ended in a quiet, buzzing panic as everyone returned to their homes to gather as many of their things as they could carry. Meridith was dead. The mages were safe. Reinforcements were coming and they would not be understanding. No one had time to talk, to figure out what happened, to mourn. They had time to argue--briefly--as they gathered at the boat and started to load.

"He's coming with us?" Fenris was snarling, angry, _murderous_ , and Anders wouldn't have had time to defend himself even if he intended to.

"Get on the _boat_ , Fenris," said Hawke, not bothering to look up as he heaved something else on deck. "We don't have time to discuss this."

Anders wasn't quite sure why he was going with them, either. Hawke was panicking, in his own very efficient way, and certainly the first thing on his mind was "save everyone's asses." Six years Hawke had loved them all, deeply, and utter betrayal did not seem to sway that.

He wanted to tell them to go on without him, but Hawke would argue, and they didn't have the time. He'd risk all of them if he tried.

He kept loading the boat.

\--

Anders stayed as isolated as he could on the long journey. It wasn't pleasant, but, after all, what was a week compared to a year? He sat, defending his decision but not, by any means, himself, to anyone that insisted on coming to him.

He would not waver. He had made the only just decision. He could not regret this.

He felt his heart harden with every doubt of his convictions. Angry and blue. This was the only way.

\--

Hawke came to him on the third day. The air was thick with tension when the door opened, the silence suffocating, and Hawke sat stiffly across the room. Anders did not look up.

Guilt and horror and despair and heartbreak.

Hawke struggled to speak.

"I'm not sorry for what I did," said Anders, looking straight ahead. His voice was weaker than he'd expected. "But I am… sorry that I hurt you." I truly loved you, he thought, but he knew better than to say that. Hawke did not need any reason to doubt his anger.

There was silence for a very long time.

"I--” Hawke's voice was wavering and Anders felt his heart wither with despair. He had done this. "I understand your reasoning. I really do. I just can't... believe that... there was no other way."

"If there had been another way, I would have taken it."

"You... Anders, you took so many lives. They weren't yours, that wasn't your decision to make."

"I know." He closed his eyes, feeling his body get heavy, his energy leaving him. "But it was the only decision to make."

Hawke made sounds like he was going to argue again, but his words died in his throat. Neither of them spoke for another long while.

Hawke took a deep, bracing breath, like he had made a decision. "We'll be landing in Ferelden in a couple of days." Another pause. Anders kept waiting for the decision. "... I love you," he said, and Anders' anger wilted. "But I..." He took a breath. "I need time to process this. I can't-- ... I need space right now."

Anders almost would have preferred to hear that Hawke hated him. The hurt might have been unbearable, but it would have made sense, at least. He wouldn't spend his time wondering if Hawke would forgive him. He wouldn't have this vague, undeserved hope to hold on to that maybe he could have his love again someday.

They should have killed him when he'd offered.

"I don't expect your forgiveness," said Anders, because he couldn't think of another thing to say.

"I... good. I'm not... certain I could forgive you," said Hawke, and silence fell over them again.

"When we land," Anders said, "I'll find my own way. I know I don't deserve it of you, but... I hope... when you've had time, you'll come to find me." He looked down at his hands, found himself with his fingers intertwined, gripping one tightly and rubbing at it like it would bring him some comfort. "I love you more than anything."

"... I love you too," was Hawke's quiet reply, and he stood. "... I'll bring you dinner later. You have to eat." He turned and left and Anders could do nothing but put his head in his hands and wish for tears to come. They didn't. His head ached with the pressure and the dull ache of anger never let him cry.

\--

Fenris and Aveline did not want to let him leave. He deserved death, or justice--maybe they were the same--but Hawke had stayed them with a gesture, and looked at Anders a long moment before saying only, "Go."

The tears finally came a long four hours later when he'd finally collapsed under the first shelter he could find from the snow. He wept for every mage taken from their family and imprisoned, every mage who had their lives or their spirits taken, and he wept for his futile efforts for seven years, and for every life he'd taken the day there was no other choice. He wept for his closest friends and the man he loved, because he was selfishly lonely and only wanted them back in his life.

For once, blissfully, Justice eased away from his mind and allowed him his sadness.

\--

Merril was right. ... Hawke was right. Anders had to do all he could to make up for what he'd done. And with the mages revolting, the circles dissolving, war had broken out across Ferelden, and Anders did not have to think the first time he saw a wounded mage.

 _Help them_.

There was no clinic in the middle of a war, but he did what he could. He came through after a skirmish, picking through the dead and saving those he could. Mages stood back up again, stumbled through the bloodied snow, and those who could helped heal the rest.

Anders turned to another wounded and saw templar armor, and blue heat flared up like an oil fire. He closed his eyes to it--and, inexplicably, thought of Bethany. Her image pushed through his hatred, donned in her templar armor that was never right for her, but she couldn't ever have been a bad templar. Never as bad a templar as the knight-captain... who, in the end, had fought for them.

He looked down at the woman. He held out his hands, and tried to push past Justice to heal her.

Justice forced him away from his own hands. Anders recovered a moment later to see the woman dead before him. Burnt almost beyond recognition but for her unmistakable armor.

She was a bad templar, he reasoned as he stood, feeling Justice raise his haughty head as if _proud_ , his point proven, vengeance carried out. At least she had a quick death by his hands.

He tried not to think about it.

\--

Anders stayed away from the bigger battles as often as he could. He helped where he was able, but his skills as a healer were more useful than his skills as a fighter, and now that full-out war had broken out he was needed more than ever.

And he didn't know these people. He didn't have any comfortable rhythm set up, no wordless strategies that just _worked_ , and he missed even his horrible arguments with them now. This was his price to pay. He could not be sorry for himself after everything he'd done.

He kept to the shadows and poured out everything he had into healing.

\--

It had been one year since Kirkwall. Funny, that--another year of isolation well after he was free. He might have tried to make friends, at least alliances, but the blank spots in his memory kept coming, more people dead in front of him, not all of them templars. He could not risk anyone else getting close to him when he was this dangerous.

Maybe the templars were right all along.

A skirmish had broken out, which was not in the slightest surprising. Anders hovered by the sidelines, staying out of sight until he could throw a buffer, a healing spell, anything. The templars had reinforcements nearby. The mages rallied. Anders ran.

It was a moment of panic, but he didn't have time to regret it: he ran until he came through a clearing, and the sight stopped his heart.

It was worse than Kirkwall. Every building was crumbling, lit ablaze, and he could not pick out a path he might run through without stepping on bodies.

He could not count them. It must have been at least a hundred, scattered on the ground, and there were so many still fighting. The noise was terrible. Screaming from pain or from stupid courage, flesh tearing, swords meeting staffs, the sound of any spell a mage could think to cast.

Pain. Fear. Anger.

This was worse than the circles. This was no justice.

Anders stared out at the horror he'd instigated, mage and spirit both, paralyzed. He did not see the templar that spotted him.

The pain was his only warning. The man had pulled his sword free of Anders' stomach before he could so much as attempt to fight back, and he heard a quiet noise escape his mouth before he fell to the ground.

\--

All he felt was the throbbing pain in his gut and the cold wet of the snow under him. This was survivable, he thought, but his hands did not move to heal and his mana felt scraped dry.

He thought of Hawke. He wondered if he had ever gotten enough time to think. Enough space. If had ever decided if Anders could be forgiven. If he had forgotten, and moved on. If he had looked for him, and never found him.

There was no other way, he wanted to tell him. Tears fell down Anders' cheeks and pooled in his ears, freezing next to the cold ground. The world had to see. And now the world had seen, and the world was at war. Anders had told Hawke there could be no peace. He supposed, now, that he was right. He didn't know how far that had gone. He truly, truly thought he had changed things for the better.

"I'm sorry." His mouth moved but he barely heard his own words. "I am truly sorry, Hawke."

He would never know, now. Anders doubted he would ever even find him among all the dead. He could only hope Hawke would stay far enough away from the war to be safe.

There was no anger in Anders' mind now. Justice was silent. It felt as though he was still staring out at the slaughter, although neither of them could see the battlefield. They had not done what was just. There could be no forgiveness for Anders now. No redemption. Not from the world, and not from Hawke.

He felt himself dying and he tried to conjure up every good memory of the man he loved. He would never see Hawke again and Hawke would never even know where Anders had gone. The knowledge ached like nothing ever had, and he tried so hard to pull his scattered thoughts together to keep even the image of Hawke's smile in his mind.

He thought of him as hard as he could and thought for a moment that he could reach out with his thoughts and make Hawke hear him. "I love you," he said, and his voice sounded sick and deathly in his ears.

Anders hardly felt the last few minutes. At least, soon, Justice would be free. Just as he thought he would be a year ago.

He let out a breath and did not take in another. Just one more dead mage in the snow.


End file.
